Raytheon Watch

Its Not the Crime in the Streets,
Its the Crime in the Corporate Suites

Wiretap Suggests Raytheon Representative Used Bribes to Secure $1.4 Billion Contract in Brazil

Based on Reports in the Boston Globe, The LA Times and Associated Press

In November of 1995, a wiretap of Julio Cesar Gomes dos Santos, a special advisor to the Brazilian President Fernando Enrique Cardoso, indicated that Raytheon's lobbyist may have bribed a senator to gain backing for a $1.4 billion dollar radar project. According to transcripts published by the Brazilian weekly Isto E, Brazilian police wiretapped a telephone conversation between Gomes dos Santos and Raytheon's operative in Brazil, Jose Afonso Assumpcão. When Assumpcão told Gomes dos Santos that Brazilian Sen. Gilberto Miranda might block the Raytheon contract, Gomes dos Santos responded, "Damn, did you already pay this guy?"

Assumpcão had also curried favor with Gomes dos Santos with a series of "gifts." Gomes dos Santos and Brazil's aviation minister were forced to resign because of the bribery scandal and their close association with Assumpcão.

Ironically, according The Los Angeles Times, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had previously helped Raytheon to take the lead in gaining the contract by making bribery charges against a French competitor, Thomson, CSF.

The radar project, known as SIVAM, was eventually approved by the Brazilian Senate after Brazil's President blocked a parliamentary investigation into accusations of corruption in the Raytheon contract. The project will caste an electronic net over the Amazon, allegedly to protect the border, fight drug trafficking and to prevent environmental crime.

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